Above the ashes
by Scarfake
Summary: [Translation of a Vistoria's original story] At the end she had made to resemble the great Tsunade, although not in the aspect she wished.


**Naruto and all its characters belong to Masashi Kishimoto.**

 **The idea of this story and the original link is property of Vistoria. (At the end I'm going to put the link to her page and the original story).**

 **The translation has been done by me.**

 _/!\_

 _«Thoughts»_  
 _Memories._

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 ** _._**

 **.:A** bove the ashes **:.**

 **.**

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In the beginning it was only one, from time to time and to hang out. For one it turned into two, because she liked the burning sensation. It was comforting to her. Two became in three and soon there were four. She stayed at that number, because she discovered that she could smile again for nothing ,spontaneously, but not very sincere. Even a few words turn funny for her; she laughed. Five was odd, she doesn't like, she revealed, that digit brought memories to her, memories that she try to move away from her mind. It is protesting too tacitly to get ignored. Sometimes she cries and Tenten wanted to quit that. She was drying.

The days progressed too slowly for her perception; blurred and distant figures, smiles that she envied, the irritating laughter, happiness that she hate and the love that she'd not conceived. She perceived that the sun was taking too long to return to warm her bones, which were eternal rainy afternoons, solitary, hidden birds in their nests, long gray despair and the cold that accompanied it and clothed her at night. By then it was no longer a few drinks, but what could last a bottle. Three-quarters, a half, four quarters. When she drank, she slept, she wasn't attacked by nightmares and Tenten wake up with a slight headache, but without tears. The discomfort of her head became customary. She accepts it.

Sometimes she sought some company with some people that she knows. They accepted, talking and laughing with flushed cheeks and bitter mouth, but they were going so soon and she still wanted to stay. She said goodbye with his hand and walked her home with a bottle hidden in her clothes, she drank big sips when nobody was watching, but to that point she was invisible to the eyes of others. She is smiling sadly to the eternal darkness that never left her alone, his faithful friend. The only one that she has. The bitterness stung the throat to swallow, but warmed his body and Tenten liked that feeling of not feeling, not feeling herself. She was always tottering across the door of her house, impossible of coldest that it was, lonely, bitter as tequila that never soothed her thirst. Years ago, she stopped of considering this place as a home, perhaps ever did. The longing for better times, sincere smiles and laughter that the wind took away. Finally, she took a long sip before getting between the sheets odorless and totally lack of heat. The head was spinning around, blurred vision fixed on the ceiling that never stopped moving, his eyes that she didn't want to see were coming to visit her and Tenten fell into unconsciousness lazy, in deep sleep without memories and hopes. There was no horror.

She pretended that she didn't mind rejection, smiled, accepting excuses, she usually told that she understood when her "friends" explain that they have things to do, -without her-, like children, husbands, wives, home, work, no time, "I must do something", "Maybe we should leave it for another day", "Sorry, Tenten". She believed them, innocently and naively, she reasoned, but it did not remove the feeling of abandonment. The searing loneliness that haunted her, stung ribs and laughed at her expense. She ignored it with a snorted and began to walk to her shop. Her friends had made their lives with their partners and children, as she decided to be alone unable to deliver the heart again. She can not blame them for not having time to share, update and perhaps even laugh, even if it was just for an instant. They don't care about being able to see the enormous sadness that were eating her eyes. Even Lee, who thought he would always be by her side, had taken on the responsibility of fatherhood and to deliver all his love, the love that he always believed, to someone else, leaving her aside, a bit ignored but full of empty excuses that she pretended to believe. It was then when she decided to close early the uncrowded weapons-store; her took down the curtains, turn the announcing to "not attend", she always imagined that someone would go just when she was not there, convincing that the client would come back the next day. She went again to buy another bottle from oblivion liquor and put herself in a row in the place that she did not want to visit, but which always ended up going.

"I'll never forgive you". She whispered while she tips the fifth glass up. "You left me alone…"

« _This is your fault_ » _._

That last sentence had never left her mouth, she held it with another sip. She does not look, she was not able to do it. The sun was going down, setting behind the mountains, the light was dim and the sky was on fire, the bottle was to the half and the Neji's grave was too quiet. The night had come together to the solitary laughter. Lying on the ground, next to her memories, she laughed of the past, of the happy moments that were returning to the present among warm breezes and the smell of flowers. Neji stroked her hair and smiled discreetly, hearing her laugh, whispering things. « _Do you remember, Neji?_ » And she broke into a loud laugh, empty, and full of uneasiness. « _I love you so much, and it is killing me. I cannot forgive you, I'm sorry. It is your fault_ » _._ The bottle had always ended empty.

There were certain times in which the alcohol gives her the enough confidence, to approach, smile and look into other eyes, speaking again with coquetry and innuendo. She ended naked and accompanied, satisfied, but much more empty than before. She does not keep the heat in her body, in the inside she was freezing. In times she believed that her heart doesn't even beating anymore. She was able to arouse feelings of her skin, feel the warmth of another hands entertaining her body, of another mouth devoured hers. She bursts into pleasure and then fell into the deep abyss of loneliness, of being dried and empty. She relegated at times even though she never meant it, sometimes her own mind betrayed herself and saw his face on the body of her lovers. She kept her eyes wide open just to not break that moment, to bring the past back again to her present days. To kiss his lips, caressing his body, feeling him in the inside. _I love you so much, Neji._ She didn't want to scare to her bedfellows therefore she preferred to leave the words aside, devoting herself simply to feel, to calming the overwhelming need that another man ever made her experienced for the first time. To forget (him), She never will forgive him.

The smirk was perennial en her mouth when she was attending to her barely clients, but no one ever realise in that fact, genuinely thanking her pleasant treat without suspecting that she was not entirely sane. She was invisible. Everyone thought that she was completely well, that she actually was really smiling. That she finally gets over him. They didn't realise it was just a mask, a dismal state of her decline, of drowning herself. Everything was so false that sometimes she was confused about the truth. She could no longer distinguish the Tenten conscious and consumed by pain, from the drunker fake. It could be that she was drunk all day, sometimes she thought and it was wonderful. And then she drank a little more to toast her performance.

In the end she had fulfilled one of her dreams, she was celebrating; she had become in someone very similar in some aspect to the great Tsunade. She also drank until obtaining unconsciousness for drowning out the unbearable pain that sometimes doesn't let her breathe.

She hated those days when the conscious part of her brain took the shape of him. She ignored it giving him her back and filling the glass, but she still feels the weight of his gaze on her neck. She imagined him, frowning and arms folded, chewing furiously her name and reproaching her behavior. Then she drinks more fluently until chase it away, make him disappear and no longer had to listen emphasize how bad she was acting. Two, three empty bottles around her and she ended up sleeping anywhere in her lonely house. She no longer cared where a fall, she wanted to burn herself to ashes, because only in that state nothing more would care. Only then she finally will forgive him.

The bad mood came back to seize her, when she proposed herself to quit drinking. She showed herself irritable, sarcastic, smiles without teeth and eyes, without dimples in her cheeks. She hated the sound of the bell announcing the arrival of a client, she was disinterested to rid them as soon as possible. Then, she drank again and her mood improves. The headaches and the nauseating smell of reality disappeared. She took the curtains down and lock herself in her store to enjoy the existential elixir that Sake means for her; she lit a cigarette and drank in short sips, savoring the powerful bitter, the incipient fire, the palpable pain. And she burned herself again. The tears turned into acid rivers that fall down her cheeks. The cry became incessant in anguish, a silent call for help. Nobody heard her, nobody saw her, and she cried a little more. She was sobbing and choking moans of sadness with another sip of alcohol. What does it matter? At the end drinking became in her only relief, the only thing that repelled that damned ghost that never ceased to pursue her. The afternoon became in lonely dark and she ignored her name shouted from the outside, she pretends not to be there and she succeeded. The drink smile at her fondly, hugged her and consoled her, and the bottles surround her. She lost count, forget the numbers and slept curled up on the floor thinking that another day of her life finished, one a little bit sadder and desolate than the last.

There were such times where she was asking for help. She showed herself in front of those that knows her and sometime called her "friend", in its purest form; with bright and lost eyes, flushed cheeks in a gaunt skin, dry lips that didn't dare to clamour for a little company, careless and empty. She didn't get anything of what she prevarication and frivolous smiles continued, the absent comments and the pathetic excuses accompanied by wonderful escapes. She began to hate and despise, to regret to believe that she ever had friends. She wanted to hurt in the same way that she was hurt. She did not regretted about the kisses and caresses, the incorrect pleasure that don't belong to her, about to be the lover and enjoy it. She became attached secretly to the idea of end up making someone suffer and whose were the man who visited her at night, hidden and when Tenten just drink a couple of glasses to give herself the necessary courage of keep on doing that. Her conscience called Neji reproached her act again, but as always she ignored him, because it was more easy to get carried away by the caresses of the man of black hair, his demanding kisses and the penis that buried in her inside making her scream of pleasure. Because in that moments, both naked, alone and with a little of alcohol, she get to see him and not the pearl eyes of the ghost that never left her alone. Her corporal satisfaction was intensified just remembering that she was hurting someone else, that she were desired and needed by another man, and that he always come back for her no matter how hard he tried to not. Revenge, suffering. She was no longer the only one who is in pain, until the fact that she wish the death.

Harassed by the people around her, disgusted with the happiness that surrounded her and she couldn't reach, she decided that this cold and cloudy day, with gray clouds that selfishly didn't want to dissolve in tears, was a good opportunity to light a little of the fire that would warm the body, the bones and evaporate all the tears. Nevertheless, her soul was an iceberg. She rummaged and gathered everything; the memories, gifts, photographs, everything that was once of him and her, the previous life that seems so distant. The training camp and its smell of wet grass in the mornings, the trees that gave shade and tranquility, _Neji, Tenten, Lee!, Guy-Sensei!, Enough the both of you!, Let them Tenten,_ no more. Years ago since she doesn't smile, time ago that she doesn't bother to rebuke the excessive enthusiasm of her friend and former teacher, she has nothing, only a few memories that keep coming when the alcohol doesn't run in her veins. She takes a long drink that burns almost painfully her throat. Breaks it all, destroys and annihilates, exactly in the way that she feels. She gathered and lit the match, letting it drop into the container that contains everything. More Sake to sleep the spirit and her body stops of belonging to her. Before her eyes the fire comes alive and she feels amazed, can't stop of gaze it. The curtains are down, the door locked. « _This is your fault_ ». She hardly blinks, the fire hypnotizes her, the flames seduce her, the bottle is emptied and replaced by another. The heat is overwhelming, but it doesn't matter, while she is wetting her throat and perceived to be not only the past that burns, but also her present and she smiles.

"You must forgive me" Pray his ghost. "You have to do it, Tenten. Please... To be together again".

"I love you so much, Neji", she confesses again. She smiles is real for the last time. "I forgive you for leave me alone... But never do it again".

He smiles sincere, grateful for the feelings that she professes to him so unconditionally. Takes her hand, leaving her have a little drink for numb her body. He knows that she already doesn't feel anything. Both stare at the flames that consumed the entire interior of the store, the smoke density and black weight in the environment sedating a little bit more to the woman. Tenten closes her eyes, she clings to the bottle and the cold hand around hers. The flames are reaching her soul, she melts and becomes ashes. Forget everything and returns to know how does the happiness feel.

The scream of concern from the pedestrians is becoming louder, the people stop and don't know what to do. They just watch the flames consume the gun store. Sasuke stops next to his daughter, who looks horrified the show, babbling words about the owner of the store and how well she has always treated by that woman. The fire is greater and someone announces with a scream that Tenten still inside. He moves fast, almost instinctively. The heat burns his skin and looks her huddled in a corner, he takes her and escapes. She is too light, almost invisible, and while they are fleeing, the bottle falls to the ground breaking in pieces. He opens space into the crowd leaving the body of the woman on the floor pretending to revive her. He gasps, shakes, try to hear her breathe, tirelessly called by her name. Begs her not die yet. The anguish constricting his chest and even the arrival of his wife didn't comfort him. Sakura reviewed, consecutive attempts to revive her, but fails. There's no way to bring her back. She had been choked by the carbon monoxide. She's dead. Tenten has died. Sasuke looks at the body of the seller of weapons and doesn't believe, his eyes become clouded and calls again, waiting for her to answer him between pleasurable sighs as the times that he had her naked under his body, he removes her and trembles, but she never reacts.

Then he realizes in what broken she looks like, in the pieces that lack, her bitter mouth and pale skin. Remember her empty eyes and the faint smell of alcohol. He understands many things, he calls her again and apologizes to the ghost of her before she leaves forever; for not having realized before, not help her, not reach get her out of the emptiness, for being blind to the pleasure and addicted to her kisses, the damage and the ignorance. He apologizes on behalf of himself and all those who never saw or accompanied her, those that left her so alone when she needed company. He clings to the lifeless body once again, holding until almost to break her, but he knows that Tenten couldn't be further broken. He leaves her on the ground again before the incredulous eyes of those people, more surprised to see the teacher of arms dead than his unexpected behavior. He meets his wife's eyes, distinguishing in that bright green the revelation of a harsh truth that he refuses to believe.

The gun shop burns on flames, lonely and empty, until be comsumed completely in silent, no one made an effort to save it. It is reduced to ashes and above they there are small pieces of broken glass. Like its owner.

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 **Vistoria's profile:** /u/1401913/Vistoria (You have to put the www. fanfiction. net first, to see it).

 **Vistoria's original story** : /s/11444348/1/Sobre-las-cenizas (Same here).

I wanted to translate this story because she is my favorite writter ever, since I started to read in this page and because she ask me that, and I have no way to say not to her. I really apologize about the mistakes in the writting, and the fails, is the first time that I translate any story from Spanish to English.

Any comment about the orthography, grammar or something like that, be my guest.

 **Scarfake.**


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